Morrison: Love
Why has Toni Morrison chosen Love as the title for her novel? It might seem like a strange choice, especially since the first scene she wrote was the rape scene. In what ways is the book about love? What kinds of love affect and afflict its characters? What does the novel, taken as a whole, suggest about the nature of love?
Please post your response no later than Thursday, February 15, 4:30pm.
posted by Monica @ 3:23 PM
34 Comments:
At 4:12 PM,
brittany t said…
I think that Toni Morrison chose Love as the title of this novel because she is trying to tell us that Heed loved her husband Bill. Even though their relationship was odd, Heed still respected her husband and went against her best friend. After their marriage Heed's family weren't really loving her for her but they wanted Bill's money. I believe that this book is saying that love can work in strange ways. Heed and Bill's love is odd and the age difference is huge but they still stay together. It is not always as strong as what we think it is.
At 4:20 PM,
Linzy said…
I think Toni Morrison chose "Love" as the title for this book because it exhibits many different views of love from different people, and mostly for the same person, Mr. Cosey. Heed and Christine both loved Mr. Cosey at one point in time and each felt that they deserved his love more than the other. There is a very thin line between love and hate and Heed and Christine's relationship represents this. Heed had no choice but to love her husband and believes that she deserves his house and belongings and is willing to fight anyone for them. The hatred between Heed and Christine began as love and developed into hate after two incidents with Mr. Cosey occurred that neither chose to talk about. This novel suggests that that the nature of love is very fragile and can be broken in an instant. One single, minute event in the essence of love can turn one's life into a chaotic mess.
At 4:27 PM,
Anonymous said…
I don't believe Love was chosen as the title of the book because of Heed and Bill's relationship, necessarily. I think Morrison is trying to show us situations in life where we may "assume" love to be, but those situations are full of other emotions and obligations. Marriage should be based on love, but the Coseys' marriage is not. It's based on a need for control, manipulation, and desire. Heed and Christine's friendship began with love, but it dissipated into hatred and jealousy. The relationship between Romen and Junior was not full of love - it was about lust and control. All of these relationships were thought to be about love, but other emotions took over instead.
At 4:42 PM,
Amy S. said…
I agree with what Linzy said about Morrison chosing "Love" as the title for her book because her book represents different views of love from different people. To take this idea a step farther, I think that one thing Morrison is trying to convey through her book is the fact that love is not a simple action or idea. I think that Morrison is trying to show her readers that love is messy and confusing, and at times it can even bring other people down. A good example of this would be the fact that the wedding/love between Heed and Bill aggrevates Christine. I think that in a lot of ways, Morrison is making a statement through her writing that goes against many of our traditional views of love and marriage. I would even argue that Morrison chosing to call her book "Love," is pretty ironic, because you go into this book thinking that it's going to be about the traditional view of love, and instead you find jealousy, deceit, and rape.
At 4:55 PM,
Adam Miklius said…
I think Toni Morrison chose love as the title of this novel to show her readers that love is a very hard word to define and grasp. Many people say they love another person but are really in the relationship for other benifits and motives. It is showing us that even relatives do not always love each other and that money, greed and jealously can and does get in the way. It shows us that people will fake a love for someone to gain benifits and power from that persons status and money.
At 5:08 PM,
Torey said…
I agree with Adam, I think Toni Morrison chose "Love" as the title because love means different things to different people. Bill loved Heed for whatever reason even though she was so young. I think that as odd as it seems to readers it can also make sense. People gasp at a 24 year old woman dating a 90 year old man, speculate as to why and then they move on. I think that if it worked for them then fine. I also think love can be many different things other than what you say. I think the love between Christine and Heed was broken to what its is now due to the love between Heed and Mr. Cosey. Like Lindzy said, its a very fine line.
At 5:14 PM,
Lisa W said…
I think, along with Amy, that the title was chosen to be ironic in a sense. I think that Morrison chose the title "Love" in order to demonstrate the concept that love falls hand in hand with hate, deceit, and disappointment. You can’t have anyone of those without all of the others. I think that the last page sums up the whole book. Heed and Christine loved each other so much that when May's love for her daughter forced hate into the relationship, heed and Christine had to hate each other with the same passion that they held a love for one another in order to stay connected. Through their hate, they demonstrated their love for one another, which showed through in the end when they sat side by side holding each other in Heed's last moments, speaking their secret language.
At 5:16 PM,
Alex said…
The novel is entitled Love to show the many different levels of love shown in the story. Heed and Christine's relationship may seem dominated by fighting and bickering, but they ultimately love each other. The Sandlers may seem to be hard on Romen, but they ultimately love him and care for his wellbeing. Love is also seen intertwined in a web of related people. Heed loves Cosey as a wife, and the Sandlers love Cosey as an employer and money giver.
Love is an emotion that can be mixed up and interpreted in different ways.
At 5:17 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think the reason why Toni Morrison chose the title Love is because; I agree with Adam, love and life are the hardest things to define. We all love somebody no matter who it is. It usually turns out to be love circles like in Mr. Cosey's life so many loved him for who he was, for his money, his attention. For example, Heed loves Christine she just doesn't show it; but I think the reason she does is because they both had one thing in common, they loved Mr. Cosey. But Toni Morrison is also showing us that, as you can see, money doesn't buy love, or happiness. Sometimes it just brings more trouble. I also agree with Brittany, that love does tend to work in strange ways for reasons we don't understand. Love is crazy just like the story, so why do we seek for love so badly?
At 5:22 PM,
Anonymous said…
In my opinion, Tony Morrison chose the title of Love out of Irony. It’s the deception, jealousy and fury which stem from the love of something in which is danger of being jeopardized. The desire for something or someone makes one do crazy things thus creating such one’s need to make the love they share with someone work to their benefit. For example, on page 110, it says that Cosey wanted a girl he could educate to his taste. In other words, make her into what he wants to love. I think that Morrison struggles to make the love between various relationships work despite the family chaos between Christine, Heed, May, and Mr. Cosey. Aside from the relationship dilemmas, I think that the title of Love is used for the bigger part of Morison’s story; race and gender. I believe that race and gender play a big role in the story and aid in her reason for the ironic title of Love. Sometimes as hard as you try, love is something you can’t create although it may grow with time. But the beauty of love is that is just is, and when it hits its unexpected and overpowering. Many of these characters are dominant and power-driven, but what creates the drama in this novel is that you can’t control real love.
At 5:28 PM,
Unknown said…
I think that Toni Morrison has chosen Love as the title of her novel because like brittany said she is trying to tell us that Heed loved her husband Bill. I think that even though she was very young when they married, she would never have gone against her best friend if she didn't love him. I feel that when Roman released the girl from being raped he was showing a form of love for human beings and that by doing that made him a better character. I think that the novel as a whole shows that there are various forms of love and that people can easily convince themselves they love someone even if it is for the wrong reasons.
At 5:30 PM,
samantha robertson said…
I don't really believe that the title is the main importance of the book. In doing a little extra reading on this book, Morrison was extremely nervous about this title. This leads me to believe that Love is not the main point to the novel. It is just a base in which to start that most people can relate to in their lives. I really think that she was trying to get the point across about race and the feelings of everyone at that time.
At 5:43 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think what Lisa W said, about love going hand in hand with hate (or just despise and jealousy) is true. I think this book was one big story about the love between Heed and Christine, while Cosey, L, May, and the Sandlers all played a part in this relationship. When young girls, Heed and Christine loved each other. Heed married Cosey and the girls hated each other. Tragedy brought them back together in the end of the book. Their love triumphed over the years of bickering and hatefulness. Love is complicated. You can love someone and dislike them at the same time. I think this novel reminds readers that love is messy and complicated, but well worth it in the long haul.
At 6:04 PM,
Anonymous said…
I'm going to have to agree with Ali here on the title being about irony. Everywhere in the book there is hatred, deception, lies and the list goes on. I guess there is some love involved...maybe a little unconditional love coming from Christine and Heed even though neither will admit it. I think that one of them would have packed up and left a long time ago if there was nothing there. I see alot more unconditional love in this story than the romance-novel love I was expecting.
At 7:54 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think the title "Love" comes in part from the chapter titles. Friend, Lover, Husband, Guardian, Father are some examples of these chapter titles. I think Morrison is trying to show just how many different kinds of love are out there. A friend's love is not the same as a husband's but it is still love. It is a form in which we show care. Each chapter shows how each of the characters care. I think "Love" was the obvious title choice for this book. I agree with Lisa in that Heed and Christine showed their love for one another through hate. I also agree with Alex in that the Sandlers are hard on Romen but are so because of their love for him. Love is complicated whether it's between a husband or wife, siblings, or best friends.
At 8:07 PM,
Unknown said…
I agree that the title Love is ironic. Just seeing Love as the title made me automatically assume that it would be a romanit novel because when I think of love I think of the huggy, kissy mushy love. This book takes on different levels of love, such as love for family, friends, and oneself. Also Morrison touches on how there is a thin line between love and other emotions. Love and hate are closely tied in this book. The relationship between Heed and Christine at the prime example of this. There is also a fine line between love and obsession. It seemed to me that many of the characters' love for Mr. Cosey turned into obsession. I also think alot of the love that was supposed to be felt for him was really felt towards his money. I really see that with Christine. I also feel that there was alot of not caring or non-love for lack of better terms shown in the book. Heed's family did not seem to really love her. They wanted to use her to get Mr. Cosey's money. Junior's family did not seem to love her either which had a negative affect on her because it seemed to make her turn her emotions off.
At 8:20 PM,
agvn said…
I think there is probably more than one reason that Morrison titled the book Love. I agree with the people that the title seems a little ironic because when you see the title Love you immediatley get an idea of what the book will be about. Then you seem to start reading a story that is devoid of love. I think Morrison maybe does this though to make the reader look harder at the characters and their lives and look for the love that inspired the title. I ultimately agree with those of you who said that Love comes hand in hand with these other emotions such as jealousy, hate, and deceit. These are some of the more apparent emotions in the book and if Morrison had used one of these words as the title, readers would probably finish the book and never question anything. It would be very clear. Making the title Love causes the reader to take a much harder look at the story and really rethink his or her preconceptions about love and what it means and also makes the reader re-evaluate the motives and actions of the characters and their relationships.
At 9:35 PM,
Anonymous said…
Morrison is trying to show through Cosey's relationships, a deeper understanding of what love can mean. I think Morrison believes that this subject is very complicated so, she tries to make examples out of other aspects of her novel with a multi-layer text. This story showed that other factors in our culture can cover up true love. For example, greed, distrust, and jealousy.
At 10:56 PM,
Paul Shelton said…
I can see just about anyone's point of view here. It does seem that Morrison is showing us different kinds of love, but at the same time this is ironic because the some of the different kinds of love can resemble hate or just not look like love at all.
Heed's and Christine's bickering looks like hatred but before they start looking for a way to change their situation they seem to get along well enough. Surely, this can be seen as type of love.
Christine never shows any traditional signs of love towards anyone especially her family. Is she really that bad or is that love implied with her being a daugther and granddaugther of the family?
Heed seems to have had a more father-daughter relationship with Bill Cosey but it's still a kind of love.
Sandler and Vida have a traditional kind of love with their small problems but still caring for one another and even more for their grandchild.
Even Romen loves what Junior represents, if not Junior herself. Junior being part of another family where love is somewhat a hard thing to comprehend and involves pretty bad things being done.
Morrison just seems to be putting a bunch of different kinds of love on display and letting her audience view them for what they are. At least that's what it seems like to me.
At 11:15 PM,
Anonymous said…
I agree with Toreyh, that love means something different to everyone. I think Morrison was trying to show that what one perosn thinks of love, someone else may not agree with. Most people would not agree with Mr. Cosey marrying such a young girl, but he his reasons might not be clear to other people. Although marrying her seems like a werid way to do it, he wanted to take care of her. He thought by marrying her he could do this. Heed and Christine's relationship was always one of love, no matter how much it seemed like they hated each other. No one else could really understand their complicated relationiship except the two of them.
At 11:38 PM,
Anonymous said…
I agree with some people in that the title has nothing to do with love. I think that is what is lacking in the story. No one truly loves. Envy, anger, and hate are the feelings I see when I read this book. We all notice the obvious situations with Heed and Christine, they love to hate each other. But look at Junior and her obsession with her "Good Man" she thinks she is in love with Bill, but what I see is a woman trying to get money. Junior feels she would love Bill if he were alive. Even with the "happy" couple, Vida and Sandler don't seem to love each other. Vida has this obsession with how aweful Heed and Christine are, and how great Bill was. In choosing this title, I think Toni Morrison want to show us what was missing, rather than what happens.
At 2:40 AM,
Curtis M said…
I felt that using Love as the title for this book was ironic but very appropriate. I felt that through their relationship and love of Bill and eventually his estate, came all this hatred, jelousy and greed. This being said, you see glipses of love for one another throughout this book even between Heed and Christine. Moreover, since Heed and Christine love Bill so much, both compete for Bill's affection while he was alive. This love for Bill ultimately ended up ruining their love for one another as bestfriends. I believe Morrison's overall message is even though the nature of love consists of good intentions and emotions, love can create jelousy, greed, and other cruel intentions.
P.S. I had to redue my blog name (formerly purduekid85)
At 11:35 AM,
Jennifer said…
In the foreword Morrison wrote that people often tell her she writes about love. Her responses saying no I often write about betrayal love is the weather and love is the lightning that reveals the weather. I think that is one of the reasons she choice the title love because it is very ironic. I think the book is about love in the ways that you get hurt and get betrayed by love. I think that the characters get tricked by "love" and in the end find out the true character of the person that they loved and they get betrayed.
At 11:35 AM,
kelli m said…
I agree with what everyone thus far has said. Love is very complicated and hard to explain. I think Morrison was just showing people's love on many different levels. She was showing how Heed and Christina went from being best friends and loving each other one second, to hating each others guts the next. She was showing how Vida and Sandler loved their grandson but at times wished his parents were back to take him back with them. Heed and Christina both loved Mr. Cosey, but after his death were more concerned with what he left for them rather than his passing. I think Morrison just wants to show how quickly love can change, and how important it is to our everyday lives.
At 11:48 AM,
Johanna S. said…
I think that most people have concluded that Morrison chose "Love" for a title to describe the different veiws of love from different people, the fine line between love and other emotions or where other emotions and obligations take over. I'm going to disagree with all that and say that she chose the title to show what love is not. In the Bible it lists a bunch of things of what love really is and basically it boils down to that real love is sacrificial with no concern for self. Each of the character's in the book love each other mostly out of a need that the other person fulfills. For example, I think that Cosey chose Heed as a wife because she was trainable, available and able to have children. I think that when Morrison wrote about Christine befriending Heed that shows us that we all have the capacity to truly love but without something else that love is easily overtaken by greed, discontent and selfishness.
At 11:58 AM,
kerri d said…
Toni Morrison is creative in picking the word "love" for her title. Relationships are out of the ordinary. They are not based on friendship, or even hatred, they are based on Love. One does not have to completely like an individual to love them. This idea is displayed through May. Before Heed and Christine she took care of Bill Cosey and his son. She took on the responsibility of taking care of her father in law, the household, the hotel, and cooking and cleaning. If she hadn’t loved them she would not have pored this much effort into her work. This demonstrates the Love Morrison talks about.
At 12:09 PM,
cneff said…
I agree with Amy and most of the others, in that the title is very ironic, again considering that she wrote the rape scene first. I think Morrison is definitely using an altered definition than the traditional, ideal picture of what most people think of when they would think of a novel or movie titled "Love." I think she is not meaning so much romantic love as maybe caring, which can be seen when Romen saves Pretty-Fay from being raped. I agree with Libby when she said that sometimes people can mistake love for other emotions and feelings that are hard to define, with lust being the biggest of those. I think the novel suggests that love is confusing and almost impossible to define. When I was in 2nd grade, my entire class was asked to define "love" and write it on a note card, and everyone had a different idea and definition, which is interesting to me. When I looked it up in the dictionary, there are 14 different definitions. The novel makes us realize that love is a almost ambiguous word, that can be open to interpretation. Just because most of us had mistaken that the novel called "Love" would be a sappy, romantic story, doesn't mean that it isn't still about love.
At 12:14 PM,
Anonymous said…
I agree with those who have said that Morrison named the book out of irony. Knowing that she is a very smart and manipulative author I think that this is something that she would do. My proof of this is on page 74. Here is the quote: "Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself." To me this is a description of love and of hatred. I think that Morrison's point is that hatred is love. You have to love to hate a person because hatred is a form of obsession with another person. You have to really care/try hard to hate other people and it is the same for love. So, my thoughts are that the name of the book is about the ironic sense that hating someone is a form of love for that person...I think.
At 1:35 PM,
Anonymous said…
I agree with many of the comments left here about how love is a very complex feeling and can be represented in different ways. One reason I believe, Toni Morrison titled the book Love is the relationship between Christine and Heed. The two women love each other very much but they express it in a hateful way. I think Morrison is showing us that both love and hate are powerful emotions and you can hate someone you love because if they let you down the emotions are so strong that they can turn to hate.
At 1:46 PM,
BlainMcDowell said…
Love strikes me as a very odd title for this book. In some ways I struggle to see where love really comes into play. It seems to focus much more on other emotions, such as hatred, lust, deceit, and revenge. All-in-all it the only true examples of love that I see come from flashbacks involving Mr. Cosey. To me it seems like all instances of love died with Mr. Cosey. It's almost as if each character had this sense of love for Mr. Cosey, and despite the fact that he has been gone for quite some time, that same sense ties them to his memory, and none of them can really seem to get beyond his passing. Maybe this is due to the profound effect he had on them or maybe it's because he was the glue that held them all together. As far as the nature of love, I think the book suggests that for some love is fleeting, while for others it lingers on and on.
At 1:57 PM,
Anonymous said…
The title "Love" suggests that whether we expect it or not, or regardless of whether we know it or not, some form of love exists in most every relationship. This novel illustrates the endless dimensions of love and its often times twisted forms. Some of the relationships in this book demonstrate love out of obligation, others show lust, others still, obsession. Truthfully, the dimensions of love know no limits and when you really sit down and think about it, some aspect of love, positive or negative, exists in every relationship we have.
At 2:24 PM,
Joanna said…
I don't think Bill Cosey really loved Heed. I think he wanted to have more children after his son died, but Heed wasn't having it. She was only 11 for goodness sakes. I think Heed was more infatuated with Bill Cosey than anything. She liked the idea of being married, and after a while I think she just liked to piss Christine off. That isn't love. There was no love between Christine and Heed because if they can throw a friendship away that fast then that isn't love.
Junior didn't love Romen. She liked the sex, and he liked being popular because he was having sex. I think the title "Love" really means nothing. If it does mean something it's the lack of "love" in this novel. People treating people badly, and only marrying them for certain reasons isn't love.
Just to throw it out there as well. Junior is a wacko, and is it Bill Cosey's ghost that she talks to? Because that's "love" from a crazy girl to a ghost.
At 2:51 PM,
Anonymous said…
I believe she chose the title "Love" because she was writing a story about love. However, I believe she didn't reveal the kind of love she was writing about until the very end when she revealed the nature of Heed and Christine's relationship. I think all the while Morrison wanted us to believe the book was called "Love" because of the supposed love all of the woman felt for Bill Cosey. However as the story unfolds, Morrison reveals that they felt for of an obsession, not a true love. It was only in Heed and Christine's relationship that I think true love was demonstrated.
At 2:56 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think the title "Love" is another one of Toni Morrison's little and subtle tricks in her book. Like in the speech we heard last Thursday, she sets us up to think that we have some insight and then plays off of our stereotyping and mental visions. She surprises us because we think the book is going to be about finding true love, and then Bill Cosey marries a pre-teen girl. I think there are also many different views of love throughout the book. A view that changed alot was between Cosey and Christine as they grew further during his marriage to Heed. Basically I believe the title of this book is just setting us up for surprises through out the book.
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